Flowers of Avicenna

Description

Abū ‘Alī al-Ḥusayn ibn ‘Abd Allāh ibn Sīnā (980–1037), commonly known as Avicenna, was born at Afshaneh, near Bukhara in Persia (present-day Uzbekistan). By the age of 10, he was well versed in the study of the Qurʼan and various sciences. He was the most famous and influential of the many Islamic scholars, scientists, and philosophers of the medieval world. He was foremost a physician but was also an astronomer, chemist, geologist, psychologist, philosopher, logician, mathematician, physicist, and poet. A prolific writer in all of these fields, he captured the knowledge of the time in well organized texts. Avicenna’s writings influenced the scholarship of medicine in the West into the 17th century. Avicenna’s al-Qānūn fī al-ṭibb (The canon of medicine) contains a complete system of medicine based on the traditions of the ancient Greek scholars. Floris Avicenne is a Latin translation of Avicenna’s masterpiece, first published in 1508 by the Renaissance editor of scientific translations Michael de Capella.